


Three Times Happy

by Keenir



Category: The Dresden Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Requested:  <i>I would like a story where something exceedingly happy and good happens to Harry and there are no consequences. Just good, happy fluff. </i><br/>1st Summary:  How Harry Dresden got his jeep.<br/>2nd Summary:  Harry and Bob discuss the best present for Anna Murphy.<br/>3rd Summary:  Harry, Murphy, Anna, and Ivy play a game on Harry's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Happy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [awanderingbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/awanderingbard/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Awanderingbard!
> 
> minor spoilers: "what about bob" (TV); "death masks" (book)
> 
> Harry's POV
> 
> Note: I found the calendar woman in the book Folk Tales of China, but I don't recall if it gave a name to the woman or to the type of being she was.

  
1.

"Mr. Dresen, you've got to help me. I think somebody's stalking me."

Being as I'm the Mr. Dresden in question, I looked across my desk and asked him my #1 question: "Have you told the police this?"

"They can't help," he said, and explained why that was so.

*

Once I'd finished peeling the decal off the jeep - _very_ carefully - the decal returned to being a regular calendar, the sort you hang on walls. "Here you go," I said, about to hand it to the young woman who belonged to said calendar. From what she's told me, an enemy of hers made it stick to this jeep back when it was serving in the war.

"Thank you, Mr. Dresden," she told me, shaking my hands, bowing profusely, and would be crying if she could.

"Happy to help," I say. "Now, where do you want me to put this?"

"I can carry it," she tells me."

"Really?" Bob can't carry his skull, but you can carry your calendar?

"Really," and holds out her hands, palms up. Waiting, sleeves impeccably starched.

"Here you go," I say, handing it over.

"Thank you again," she says. "Please, take my jeep. It's my only other possession."

"Um, thanks," I say. She's been half-following, half-dragged-around-by this here jeep since the Korean War. The latest owner, the one who'd hired me to find his stalker, probably won't be visiting Chicago again anytime soon. "You sure you don't want it?"

"I miss having walls about me," she admits.

"Will an apartment do?" I ask. I know a place, and in a better neighborhood than mine.

"Eminently. For all you have done for me..." and gets a wary look in her eyes, "what would you ask of me in return?"

Yep, she's definately supernatural. If her faded double on the decal hadn't been enough, or her slightly faded period clothing, her inability to dodge reciprocity was a giveaway.

I have no idea what'll happen if I say 'absolutely nothing' and it might be really bad.

"Just stay safe," I ask of her. "And keep out of trouble."

She nods. "I can and I shall do that. But do you at least wish my name?"

That's a powerful thing right there. "Not today, thanks."

We shake again, and I watch her and her calendar disappear into the morning foot traffic.

Not five minutes later, a police car pulls up to the curb, and out steps Detective Murphy. "Harry, I wanted to talk with you about... whose car is that?"

"This jeep?" I ask. "It's mine."

**~~~~~  
2.**

I put one hand on a polka-dot box and hesitate. For one thing, how did I come to own a box as gaudy as this? For another, why's it down here in my basement with the heavy-duty magic stuff?

"A pheonix feather?" Bob asks me. "Do young girls her age continue to turn around and about, trailing their accessores?"

Well, that explains why my uncle used this box - and really, who but my uncle would save a pheonix feather? "We don't want Anna bursting into flame." Much less being reborn as a magical being.

"Yes, I imagine the good Detective would be displeased."

"Oh yeah," I say. Leaving the polka dots in favor of something better. If there was ever a person who could rip my soul from my body and imprison me in my own skull for all eternity, and do all that without magic, Murphy could.

But that's not why I don't want to piss her off.

"Not that, Harry," Bob says, seeing what I'm picking up.

"What?" I ask. "You don't think it'd be a good birthday present?"

"To the contrary, I agree with you on that score."

"Besides, you hate it."

"I do not," Bob says.

"Sure you do. You told me so."

"Harry, I told you I did not see the point of a wizard having a 'magic flute' which has no magic."

"Again, thanks for telling me so before I showed it to my uncle," I say.

"Yes, I imagine Justin would have commended you on your ingenuity, and tasked me with teaching you how to make it truly magical."

"And then it wouldn't make a good birthday present."

**~~~~~  
3.**

My morbid curiosity is going to be the death of me, I know it. Yesterday, Ancient Mai stopped by and told me she'd send a childhood friend over to sing Happy Birthday to me. Now, I never had many friends when I was growing up, and I've no idea if Mai meant my childhood, hers, or her friend's. But I was curious, and figured my home's wards were enough to keep out anything up to and including dragons, so I said Yes.

And, during those five minutes, I'd forgotten that Murphy and Anna were coming over.

"You're sure you don't mind?" I ask Murph while Anna's rolling the dice. "I mean, I should've said No, given we'd already set today aside for this, and -"

"Its fine, Harry," Murphy says. "I admit, I'm curious who some of your friends are."

Thanks, Murph.

"I'm his friend," the Archive says pointedly as Anna hands her the dice so she can take her turn at this game of _Chutes And Ladders_.

"Thank you, Ivy," I say. "But I think she meant that, other than you, herself, and Anna, I don't really have many friends."

Ivy opens her mouth, and shuts it, and I really seriously hope she wasn't about to say 'Mr. Kincaid said he wasn't going to shoot you without due cause.'

Ten minutes later...after a full ten minutes of still nothing going wrong, of me enjoying the day and all those in it with me...

"Mom," Anna asked, "can Ivy come to my sleepover next week?"

Ivy's jaw dropped, and Kincaid would've fainted if he'd been here - and he's not the fainting sort. "You'd want me there?" Ivy asks Anna, awestruck. I imagine this would be an opportunity to be on the other side of what she normally does - sit and _know_ everything that's written down at every sleepover in history.

"Yeah," Anna said. "Please, mom?"

"If it's okay with her parents," Murph says, taking her turn. Up the ladder you go.

"Permission should be attainable," Ivy says. Something tells me I'm going to end up babysitting Kincaid.

Ah, save that worry for next week. Right now, now its my turn. So I roll...and have to slide down the ladder. Story of my life. But the company's great, so I've got no complaints.

Not ten minutes after I slide, there was a knock on my door. "I'l get it," I say, and get to my feet and go to the door.

Murph and Anna don't look up from the board. This is so quiet, so peaceful, so great.

...that I'm suspicious that nothing bad is happening today. Is this Mai's idea of a present? No complaints from me.

I open my front door, and ask, "Yes?"

"Hi!" she says. Hm, she's older than I thought she'd be. And she's stepping inside without an invite. "Mai sent me. I'm Parker."

**Author's Note:**

> Right after I posted this, I realized it might've been even better if, at the end, it had been Cal Lightman at the door to sing.


End file.
